In other words, says Jeffery Tobias Halter, President of YWomen, if your Operating Unit Business Presidents can’t articulate to you, in real dollar terms, the value of your company’s women’s leadership strategy, something needs to change. According to Halter, there are three specific business reasons to implement an integrated women’s leadership strategy: women help grow revenue, women improve operating profits, and women enhance company reputation. This is a real-time action plan, says Halter, and it significantly benefits companies for decades to come. In other words, engaging women isn’t “just a nice thing to do.”

Furthermore, these techniques and principles will strengthen other shifting areas in the workplace. Identities are complex and intertwined, and so a conversation about one specific aspect of diversity and inclusion will benefit other aspects too. Indeed, many underserved employees of all kinds find themselves code-switching, doing extra emotional labor, or at a loss for mentors, meaning that eventually everyone is operating at a deficit. Strong, forward-thinking companies, and HR departments in particular, will address these issues now for a stronger, more effective workplace over time.